Ah! Speaking of "sweeping irresponsible statements", would you happen to have some evidence for
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Some supremo's were in a hurry to pocket 60% of the 2k crore project money. That is the going rate for commissions. And, of course that 60% of 1k crore gets raked in every year to keep dredging till waves cease to break the kerala back-waters.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The same Prof. Tad Murthy states that he conveyed his concerns to the Project Director, an IAS officer, who promised to consider them carefully.
While preparing for a tsunami of course makes sense, and it is possible that the precise location of the origin of the tsunami can be predicted with accuracy by some people (usually after the fact, but let that pass...), it is also necessary to consider all the other issues that determine the optimal choice for alignment of the canal. A poll among 5 or 6 readers I am sure is one way to determine this, but not if you want to get a defensible answer. It is quite interesting to see the suggested mode of operation of the proposed Chair of the Committee to decide this.
The interested reader is referred to the very calm and careful statements of Prof. Murthy, with the hype of the RSS declaration (which is understandable, the RSS is into politics, not science), and the Petition advanced by Dr. Kalyanaraman. To me it appears that the Petition is "aligned", no pun intended, very precisely along what the RSS wants to be heard, rather than what Prof. Murthy or others have thoughtfully stated.
Once again, I will emphasize that I am NOT agreeing that Prof. Murthy has thought carefully and done calculations about the quantitative effect of the deepening of this channel, on the potential tsunami over the Kerala coastline.
Is there some calculation that precisely predicts the AMPLITUDE of the next tsunami? Perhaps the next quake there is another 100 times bigger than the Dec. 2004 one, wiping out the entire East coast infrastructure. Help from the West coast will have to go around the turbulent seas around SL, at a time when aftershocks are still expected, because we did not build the SSC project, listening to Prof. Murthy and his concerns as distorted and amplified by the politicians.
How many children will die waiting for help to arrive?? Could someone ask Prof. Murthy to weigh this in his calculations? The Project Director certainly has to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages.
How many died needlessly after the cyclone of December 1965 (it hit precisely in this area and transformed the topography, doing far worse damage to Shri Ram's route than the SSC will ever do. It cut Dhanushkodi off from Rameshwaram.
Help from the WEst coast could have arrived swiftly, had the SSC been there. But thousands died of hunger and thirst, blinded by the 120mph sand blast.
How many died needlessly in Nov/Dec. 1975 when the cyclone hit south of Chennai (I did, at least in the Differential Equations and Design of Machine Elements Final Exams which did not get postponed as I had fully and confidently assumed, based on the stupid weather predictions..)
The southern East coast was smashed, trains were stopped by the flooding - but help could not arrive from the west coast because the SSC was not there.
So much for the "Saving Lives" claims of the Opposition.
****************************************************************
Does Prof. Murthy's calculation take into account the fact that the channel is crooked, and will reflect and damp out most sudden impulses? Does he include this in his calculation of Quarter Wave Resonance (the idea that a fluid in a STRAIGHT tube will develop large oscillations if a disturbance is applied)?? He cites a channel in Alaska - is this channel straight or crooked?
If the crookedness of the channel is irrelevant, then so is the complaint that the channel itself will not survive a tsunami, but die protecting the coast by absorbing the energy. The Opposition needs to decide which crooked line to take here.
Now let's look at Prof. Murthy's advice: it is simply to direct the northern opening of the deep-sea channel to the east (towards the coast) rather than to the north-west (the direction of most of the traffic).
What would be the effect in a tsunami? He argues, and I do not question it, that the opening will be protected from that first lash of the wave front. Wonderful.
But go back and read the accounts of the tsunami. MOST PEOPLE DROWNED BECAUSE THEY WERE PULLED BACK INTO THE SEA, MILES OUT.
In other words, the backwash carried megatons of debris, people, everything, into the sea for miles out. The opening of the canal facing the coast, would be completely choked with debris, and the canal would be out of commission exactly when it is most needed - for rescue and resupply to come in!!!!
This is the danger in taking a pet theory and tom-tomming it to the press. The solution suggested is quite wrong. No wonder the IAS officer, after taking advice from all quarters, looks like he decided not to follow it.
Dr. K claims above that the SSC plans were made before the tsunami. Accurate. They've been around MUCH longer than the plans for the Narmada project. The planning must have reached a critical stage BETWEEN 1998 and 2004 for it to have got to the present cash-distribution stage. In other words, THIS WAS FINE AS PLANNED WHEN THE BJP WAS IN POWER, but it became a "Hindu-dissing, irresponsible, corrupt, scientifically unsound" project now. JUST LIKE THE NUCLEAR PACT - the Overseas Friends of the BJP circulated a "Scientific White Paper" developed by a "Dr. Dinesh Agarwal" or something at Pennsylvania State University (Ooo!! I feel faint from admiration at the sheer Credenshuls!) claiming that INDIA HAS ALL THE ELECTRIC POWER IT NEEDS, no need for nuclear power!!! Fortunately, most Indians, like in the Capital City of Dilli, could not read this, because the power cut precluded browsing the 'net. Such is the intellectual ethics of political entities. I am DEEEPLY sorry to see the Saraswati Foundation's name being used to sell the present "Tsunami Theory". A real shame.
*******************************************************
Now for those NASA images that are cited as "proof" of a man-made land bridge, 200,000,000,000,000 years ago. Well, let me just say that I have seen them. How much of the "land bridge" is cloud, and how much real? Where again is the evidence that it is ALL man-made? It is quite possible that some part of it may have been, but that part is probably nowhere near where the SSC deep channel is proposed. Simple reasoning: the man-made part would have been made with boulders, less susceptible to being washed away, and in fact more susceptible to having more sand accumulate. The natural parts would have been eroded and gone under the sea.
This again is part of the problem. The Opposition is destroying their own credibility (even among those who ascribed credibility to them) by taking refuge behind these sorts of easily-destroyable claims, putting their trust in the shifting sands of a "NASA image" or stuff like that.
Consider this: If it is visible on NASA images, the Ramar Bridge is also visible on images from Indian Remote Sensing satellites, and probably from high-altitude aircraft, and from low-altitude surrveys and sonobuoy surveys. How come the RSS and its excellent Scientists haven't bothered to take a boat with a depth sounder, and mapped out this region so far, and presented that data?
After all, there are all these thousands of angry fishermen out there, hey? We're talking about places 10 miles offshore, after all? And these such Holy, Sacred Places too??
Why base the entire Opposition to this project on some casual statements made by a Canadian Govt. official (Dr. Ted) and a Christian Evangelist Conspiracy (NASA)? Could it be because they are easy to condemn later?
By the way, the dedication to the Cause of Protecting Hindu Heritage is indeed touching. How much has been done to excavate and protect the buried temples that were reported to have shown up in the backwash of the Tsunami, off the coast of Mahabalipuram? Waiting for some project to put rice in the mouths of the desperately poor people of that region, before starting another round of Petitions and jumping up and down like Energizer Bunnines, I presume????
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Some supremo's were in a hurry to pocket 60% of the 2k crore project money. That is the going rate for commissions. And, of course that 60% of 1k crore gets raked in every year to keep dredging till waves cease to break the kerala back-waters.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The same Prof. Tad Murthy states that he conveyed his concerns to the Project Director, an IAS officer, who promised to consider them carefully.
While preparing for a tsunami of course makes sense, and it is possible that the precise location of the origin of the tsunami can be predicted with accuracy by some people (usually after the fact, but let that pass...), it is also necessary to consider all the other issues that determine the optimal choice for alignment of the canal. A poll among 5 or 6 readers I am sure is one way to determine this, but not if you want to get a defensible answer. It is quite interesting to see the suggested mode of operation of the proposed Chair of the Committee to decide this.
The interested reader is referred to the very calm and careful statements of Prof. Murthy, with the hype of the RSS declaration (which is understandable, the RSS is into politics, not science), and the Petition advanced by Dr. Kalyanaraman. To me it appears that the Petition is "aligned", no pun intended, very precisely along what the RSS wants to be heard, rather than what Prof. Murthy or others have thoughtfully stated.
Once again, I will emphasize that I am NOT agreeing that Prof. Murthy has thought carefully and done calculations about the quantitative effect of the deepening of this channel, on the potential tsunami over the Kerala coastline.
Is there some calculation that precisely predicts the AMPLITUDE of the next tsunami? Perhaps the next quake there is another 100 times bigger than the Dec. 2004 one, wiping out the entire East coast infrastructure. Help from the West coast will have to go around the turbulent seas around SL, at a time when aftershocks are still expected, because we did not build the SSC project, listening to Prof. Murthy and his concerns as distorted and amplified by the politicians.
How many children will die waiting for help to arrive?? Could someone ask Prof. Murthy to weigh this in his calculations? The Project Director certainly has to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages.
How many died needlessly after the cyclone of December 1965 (it hit precisely in this area and transformed the topography, doing far worse damage to Shri Ram's route than the SSC will ever do. It cut Dhanushkodi off from Rameshwaram.
Help from the WEst coast could have arrived swiftly, had the SSC been there. But thousands died of hunger and thirst, blinded by the 120mph sand blast.
How many died needlessly in Nov/Dec. 1975 when the cyclone hit south of Chennai (I did, at least in the Differential Equations and Design of Machine Elements Final Exams which did not get postponed as I had fully and confidently assumed, based on the stupid weather predictions..)
The southern East coast was smashed, trains were stopped by the flooding - but help could not arrive from the west coast because the SSC was not there.
So much for the "Saving Lives" claims of the Opposition.
****************************************************************
Does Prof. Murthy's calculation take into account the fact that the channel is crooked, and will reflect and damp out most sudden impulses? Does he include this in his calculation of Quarter Wave Resonance (the idea that a fluid in a STRAIGHT tube will develop large oscillations if a disturbance is applied)?? He cites a channel in Alaska - is this channel straight or crooked?
If the crookedness of the channel is irrelevant, then so is the complaint that the channel itself will not survive a tsunami, but die protecting the coast by absorbing the energy. The Opposition needs to decide which crooked line to take here.
Now let's look at Prof. Murthy's advice: it is simply to direct the northern opening of the deep-sea channel to the east (towards the coast) rather than to the north-west (the direction of most of the traffic).
What would be the effect in a tsunami? He argues, and I do not question it, that the opening will be protected from that first lash of the wave front. Wonderful.
But go back and read the accounts of the tsunami. MOST PEOPLE DROWNED BECAUSE THEY WERE PULLED BACK INTO THE SEA, MILES OUT.
In other words, the backwash carried megatons of debris, people, everything, into the sea for miles out. The opening of the canal facing the coast, would be completely choked with debris, and the canal would be out of commission exactly when it is most needed - for rescue and resupply to come in!!!!
This is the danger in taking a pet theory and tom-tomming it to the press. The solution suggested is quite wrong. No wonder the IAS officer, after taking advice from all quarters, looks like he decided not to follow it.
Dr. K claims above that the SSC plans were made before the tsunami. Accurate. They've been around MUCH longer than the plans for the Narmada project. The planning must have reached a critical stage BETWEEN 1998 and 2004 for it to have got to the present cash-distribution stage. In other words, THIS WAS FINE AS PLANNED WHEN THE BJP WAS IN POWER, but it became a "Hindu-dissing, irresponsible, corrupt, scientifically unsound" project now. JUST LIKE THE NUCLEAR PACT - the Overseas Friends of the BJP circulated a "Scientific White Paper" developed by a "Dr. Dinesh Agarwal" or something at Pennsylvania State University (Ooo!! I feel faint from admiration at the sheer Credenshuls!) claiming that INDIA HAS ALL THE ELECTRIC POWER IT NEEDS, no need for nuclear power!!! Fortunately, most Indians, like in the Capital City of Dilli, could not read this, because the power cut precluded browsing the 'net. Such is the intellectual ethics of political entities. I am DEEEPLY sorry to see the Saraswati Foundation's name being used to sell the present "Tsunami Theory". A real shame.
*******************************************************
Now for those NASA images that are cited as "proof" of a man-made land bridge, 200,000,000,000,000 years ago. Well, let me just say that I have seen them. How much of the "land bridge" is cloud, and how much real? Where again is the evidence that it is ALL man-made? It is quite possible that some part of it may have been, but that part is probably nowhere near where the SSC deep channel is proposed. Simple reasoning: the man-made part would have been made with boulders, less susceptible to being washed away, and in fact more susceptible to having more sand accumulate. The natural parts would have been eroded and gone under the sea.
This again is part of the problem. The Opposition is destroying their own credibility (even among those who ascribed credibility to them) by taking refuge behind these sorts of easily-destroyable claims, putting their trust in the shifting sands of a "NASA image" or stuff like that.
Consider this: If it is visible on NASA images, the Ramar Bridge is also visible on images from Indian Remote Sensing satellites, and probably from high-altitude aircraft, and from low-altitude surrveys and sonobuoy surveys. How come the RSS and its excellent Scientists haven't bothered to take a boat with a depth sounder, and mapped out this region so far, and presented that data?
After all, there are all these thousands of angry fishermen out there, hey? We're talking about places 10 miles offshore, after all? And these such Holy, Sacred Places too??
Why base the entire Opposition to this project on some casual statements made by a Canadian Govt. official (Dr. Ted) and a Christian Evangelist Conspiracy (NASA)? Could it be because they are easy to condemn later?
By the way, the dedication to the Cause of Protecting Hindu Heritage is indeed touching. How much has been done to excavate and protect the buried temples that were reported to have shown up in the backwash of the Tsunami, off the coast of Mahabalipuram? Waiting for some project to put rice in the mouths of the desperately poor people of that region, before starting another round of Petitions and jumping up and down like Energizer Bunnines, I presume????